1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus that can be connected to a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various conventional communication apparatuses have been widely known that are connected to networks such as a local area network (LAN) and the Internet to communicate with external apparatuses on the networks.
A protocol widely used for the communication apparatus to be connected to the network is an internet protocol. The internet protocol allocates an address (internet protocol (IP) address) unique to each apparatus so that the apparatuses can identify each other using the IP address. When a communication apparatus is connected to the network in order to put the apparatus into a usable state, various types of network settings including IP address setting are to be performed.
Conventionally, a manager has operated an operation unit of the communication apparatus to input each value to be set thereto. However, in recent years, network setting for the communication apparatus can be remotely performed from an external apparatus connected thereto via the network. For example, according to a method discussed in Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-122944, a setting packet is transmitted from a network management apparatus to a network device, and the network setting for the network device can be remotely performed.
More specifically, firstly, the network management apparatus transmits a search packet to a media access control (MAC) address which means broadcast transmission as a destination. Upon receiving a response packet from the network device that has received the search packet, the network management apparatus acquires the MAC address of the network device from the response packet. The network management apparatus transmits each value to be set for the network device to the acquired MAC address as a destination. The network device that has received the transmitted value sets the each value specified by the network management apparatus to the own apparatus and completes the network setting.
However, a following issue arises when the setting packet transmitted via the network is received and the network setting for the communication apparatus is performed according to data included in the setting packet.
Conventionally, when the network setting is remotely performed using the setting packet, the communication apparatus subjected to setting has analyzed all packets (to the MAC address of the own apparatus or the MAC address meaning the broadcast transmission) received via the network. That is because, in order to enable the network setting to be performed remotely from a state in which no IP address is set, the packet in a layer lower than that in which the IP address is treated is to be received and whether the received packet is the setting packet is to be determined.
However, once the network setting is completed, the setting packet does not need to be processed, and thus it is not necessary to determine whether the packet received via the network is the setting packet. Nevertheless, for the conventional apparatus, even after the network setting has been completed, all packets received via the network have been analyzed to determine whether the packets have been the setting packets. Accordingly, due to analysis of the packets, a processing load of the communication apparatus has been increased, thereby causing delay of other various types of processing such as drawing processing on an operation screen, printing processing, and image conversion processing.